FINE BY THE FIRESIDE...

 

Calendar illustration for January

 

And now it's time for a deeply depressing descent into the depths

of the doldrums, as I regale you with yet another anaemic anecdote that's

sure to arouse your apathy (if that's not a contradiction in terms) and have

you reaching for the Demazipan to dampen your despair at my rambling

reminiscences. (Don't you just love awesome alliteration? I know I do.)

 

On my wall hangs a 1985 calendar, which I purchased from a book-
shop in Portsmouth sometime back in the month of January or February
of that very year. It's a WIND IN THE WILLOWS calendar, featuring the

iconic illustrations of ERNEST H. SHEPARD, and for a month or three, it

hung above the tiled fireplace of the room I was staying in at the time.



The calendar in March 1985

 

That tiled fireplace was a relic of another era, conjuring up images

of the '50s or '60s when such a feature was commonplace in most houses

in Britain. I could just imagine families huddled around the roaring flames,

trying to heat their cold bones on wintry nights, whilst listening to the radio

and supping cups of Bovril or Horlicks. (Yucchh!) Not so in my case how-

ever; the fireplace was empty, and a sheet of hardboard covered the

recess where the grate should've been.

 

That year ('85), it snowed in Portsmouth. Nothing more than a light

fall covering the streets for two or three days, before turning to slush

and then disappearing. You'd have thought it was a calamity of immense

proportions. "Worst snow we've had since 1963!" was the common cry of

complaint from the locals. I imagined that the date was a rough 'guess-

timate', chosen merely because it was the closest approximation anyone

could remember. Imagine my surprise when, twenty-odd years later, I

heard a radio weather forecaster confirm the year of 1963 as indeed

one of the worst on record for that particular part of the country.

A scan of the calendar today

 

All I can say is that we Scots must be a hardy lot. Such light snow for

so short a period wouldn't have been a big deal to us. If anything, we'd

have been disappointed that it hadn't been heavier and longer-lasting.

However, let's not mock the English for being wimps - they can't help

it. (He said, in a deeply caring and affectionate way.)

 

Anyway, what has all this to do with anything? Just this: As I type these

words, it's snowing outside, and glancing at that calendar reminds me of

when it hung on a wall in a room of a bedsit in Buckland on a similar kind

of evening very nearly thirty years ago. The fireplace gave forth no heat

back then, but recalling that room today, with the selfsame calendar hang-

ing on my present wall, the embers of memory cast a warm glow that

envelops me in its radiant embrace.